Yesterday, I posted an angry response to a post by fellow writer, Laura Susan Johnson, author of “Crush” and “Bright,” her current work in progress. Her post was in response to a gay author who, after reading excerpts from "Bright," told her gay readers were tiring of gay fiction being mostly about gay erotica and indiscriminate gay "encounters". In her post, defending her position, Laura wrote in part, “the very words "gay" and "homosexual" and "lesbian" are not only about identity, they are about sexuality.” (read the complete post here: http://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_...)

I posted a response, writing, in part, that as a writer and a gay man I was completely put off by her assertion. I put forth the notion that “being gay, lesbian, homosexual is about attraction, it’s about who you want to hold hands with, who you want to go to prom with, who you want to build a life with. Sex is an outgrowth of attraction, an expression of something. And yes, sometimes it’s just a primal urge but surely not all the time, not every time, not exclusively.”

In retrospect, my response was probably a bit harsh (I can be a bit of a hot head—especially when I care about something passionately), so after a night’s sleep I have decided to attempt to articulate my position again. As Laura explained her thinking through her characters, I think I will attempt to do the same.

In “His Name Was Jose,” the book, I’m currently finishing, the main character, Lincoln, is introduced at age 6. He lands in hot water when he comes home from first grade and announces he will marry his best friend, a boy, when he grows up. To make matters worse, he is an effeminate boy. My challenge here was how to define Lincoln as gay outside the context of sexuality (he is after all six). Later, when he is twelve he falls in love with Jose. Again the challenge was describing desire, attraction, without the element of sexual desire. That same sex attraction makes him gay but he is not yet a sexual being. What does yearning for another boy feel like at that age, the age before sex rises to consciousness? In large part because so much of the character of Lincoln is grounded in me and my experiences, it was mostly a matter of remembering. And when Lincoln does discover sexual desire, it takes an odd form. Later, at 15 when he enters into his first sexual relationship with another boy, Tony, I try to get beyond the act itself to what is drives their desire, what they get from the closeness of sex, how it makes Lincoln feel.

I think the best way to sum up my view point on what it means to be gay is to quote a passage from the book. Thirty years after he last saw Tony, Lincoln wonders where he is, what he is doing:

“I found myself thinking about Tony more and more. I remembered the two of us looking at Time magazine, at a photo of two men in San Francisco, climbing a hilly shaded street holding hands. In daylight. “Look,” he’d said, “That could be us one day.” We’d marveled at that picture, that such a place existed. Tony cut the picture out, and after carefully folding it, tucked it into his wallet. I’d like to think that he’s in San Francisco now. That he’s found a man to hold hands with. That is my wish for him. I know it was his for me.”

What do you think? How do you define being gay?

For more about me, my take on gay romance and my books, visit me at www.larrybenjamin.com

Note: You can read Laura’s follow up post here: http://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_...